Brian Calfano — Media Sales, Documentary, Broadcast & Research

Brian
Calfano

I spend my days at latakoo helping filmmakers and newsrooms move the footage that becomes their stories, make documentaries about the people who built television news, and research how media shapes politics and the people who watch it.

Director of Film Partnerships and inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at latakoo. Ph.D. in political science; more than two decades working in higher education, including teaching at California State University, Texas A&M University and Future University in Egypt. Certified in Applied Business Science (Digital Marketing) through Texas Executive Education at UT Austin's McCombs School of Business, and certified in Google Ads and HubSpot.

The fastest end-to-end video workflow

latakoo was built by journalists. Founders Paul Adrian and Jade Kurian lived the workflows that slowed news delivery down — field editing, compression, transfer, every step a race against the clock — so they built a simpler one. From Austin, Texas, the platform moves video from anywhere at any bandwidth and hands it off, automatically, to whatever system a newsroom or production already runs on.

My work focuses on sales and film partnerships, working with filmmakers and production teams whose stories are long, whose assets are massive and whose crews are everywhere — and, as Scholar-in-Residence, research into what video management does to journalism itself.

Director · Executive producer · 2026

John Johnson Reporting

The trailblazing New York journalist who remains the only person ever to anchor at WABC, WCBS and WNBC. Produced by latakoo, narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, built on archival materials in direct collaboration with ABC and Disney. I direct, and executive produce through History's Heart Productions with Ann Yih Johnson of BlueBird Productions. Named a winner in the Documentary category of the 47th Annual Telly Awards, chosen from more than 13,000 entries; the team is pursuing international distribution agreements.

Telly Awards · Documentary Six festival wins, 2026 Announcement →

Director · 58 min · 2024

Al Primo & His Eyewitness News Revolution

The man who invented the Eyewitness News format, told by the people who were in the room. WABC-TV premiered the film in New York in May 2024, with a Q&A featuring John Johnson and Geraldo Rivera. It now sees educational distribution through Good Docs, and earned a 2025 New York EMMY nomination.

NY EMMY nomination · Best Historical Doc Best Doc Feature · Queens Best Feature Doc · BEA Festival of Media Arts Best Director · Triloka

Brian Calfano and Sarah Scarlett presenting Show Me Missouri on KOLR10

Anchor · Analyst · Host

Two decades on air

Anchored, reported and produced for Nexstar Media Group, the nation's largest owner of local TV stations, and for Charter Spectrum, its largest cable provider — KSNT 27 News, Spectrum News 1 Ohio and KOLR10. Produced and anchored Show Me Missouri, Ozarks Tonight and the 16-part Our Constitution Made Easy, and hosted Morningline on News Talk 560AM KWTO for seven years. Also a regular political commentator for CTV News, Global News Toronto and Sky News UK.

First Place, Education Issues · Ohio SPJ Investigative · Missouri Broadcasters Enterprise Reporting · Ohio AP CTV · Global News · Sky UK

Research · Ph.D. Political Science

Media, politics and religion

Ten books and more than sixty peer-reviewed articles on media effects, religion and politics, television news and government responses to marginalized groups — in Political Research Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, Political Behavior and Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, among others. Supported by two National Science Foundation grants and a Scripps Howard Foundation grant. Cited more than 1,600 times.

“The carefully researched and beautifully written chapters in this volume answer the essential ‘how,’ ‘when,’ and ‘why’ questions that link religion and politics.”
— Michele Margolis, University of Pennsylvania

Media & politics Religion & politics Google Scholar →

KOLR10/KSN Poll press release, October 28, 2010, Poll Director Brian Robert Calfano, Ph.D.

Research · Poll Director, 2010

Calling the 2010 Missouri Senate Race

As poll director for the KOLR10/KSN Poll, run through Missouri State University's Center for Social Sciences and Public Policy Research, I supervised a random-digit-dial survey of 821 registered voters (672 likely voters) fielded October 20–27, 2010. It was the last Missouri Senate poll released before Election Day — and the most accurate of the late entries.

Final poll	Blunt	Carn.	Margin
KOLR10/KSN	54%	41%	Blunt +13
Rasmussen	52%	43%	Blunt +9
Mason-Dixon	49%	40%	Blunt +9
PPP	46%	41%	Blunt +5
Final result	54.23%	40.63%	+13.60

A+ rated pollster · PoliAgg PoliAgg rating → Full poll release → 2010 race →

Author · Temple University Press · 2013

God Talk

Experimenting with the Religious Causes of Public Opinion, with Paul A. Djupe — how religious cues, values and identity-driven appeals shape candidate selection, trust, interest group support and public opinion.

“Paul Djupe and Brian Calfano set out to change not only the way that scholars think about religion’s influence on public opinion but also the methods that scholars use to investigate those relationships… Many of the findings are intriguing… God Talk makes (a) forceful argument that the religion and American politics subfield should embrace experimental methodology… (and) a compelling case for the usefulness of these treatments… (T)his book is a timely testament to the potential of survey-embedded experimental tools.”
— Political Science Quarterly

Temple University Press God Talk →

Author · Palgrave Macmillan · 2021

The American Professor Pundit

Academics in the World of US Political Media, with Valerie Martinez-Ebers and Aida Ramusovic — on how professors take their expertise to TV, radio and print, and what it costs and rewards them to do it.

“…a key to further closing the professor-pundit gap and should be required reading for social scientists…”
— Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto, MSNBC & Telemundo Contributor “The rewards of media commentary can be considerable, yet significant dangers are often unrecognized…”
— Larry J. Sabato, Center for Politics, UVA

Palgrave Macmillan View on Springer →

Author · Columbia University Press · 2020

Human Relations Commissions

Relieving Racial Tension in the American City, with Valerie Martinez-Ebers — on the local government bodies tasked with defusing racial tension, and what actually determines whether they work.

“Calfano and Martinez-Ebers have provided needed focus on local policy making by turning to human relations commissions and examining the effects of their work—not just on the communities they are created to serve but also on the leaders themselves who invest so greatly in the effort of making our pluralistic society more congenial. This is important work.”
— Gary Segura, Dean of the Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA

Columbia University Press View on JSTOR → View on Columbia University Press →

Academic support · latakoo · 2024

Young Adult Dinner Dialogue Program Report

Authored by the Young Adult Dinner Dialogue Ad Hoc Committee and the Los Angeles Civil and Human Rights + Equity Department, with academic support from latakoo — drawn from conversations between community members and LAPD patrol officers.

LA Civil + Human Rights Dept. Read the report → U.S. Census Bureau · Federal CASIC Workshops, 2014 →

Collaborative Agreement Plan, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio, In re Cincinnati Policing

Survey design · Cincinnati Collaborative Agreement

A Candid Discussion About Social Justice

Iris Roley of the Cincinnati Black United Front, interviewed in the Freedom Center Journal on the history of the Collaborative Agreement, recalls designing the community survey with Brian and civil rights attorney Al Gerhardstein.

“Then Brian Calfano texted me. And his first text to me was, ‘Hey chief, what do you want to say in this survey?’… Brian took all of that—he took all of my thoughts, and all of what Al said—and created this beautiful survey.”
— Iris Roley, Cincinnati Black United Front

Freedom Center Journal Read the interview →

Say Hi to Bri

latakoo inquiries, hosting or production work, research questions — this is the right place to start. Drop me a note below and let me know what's on your mind.

Choosing What's Hard

On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy stood at Rice University and challenged the country to commit to a goal precisely because it would be difficult. That idea — that difficulty is a reason to pursue a goal, not avoid it — has stayed with me well beyond any one career. It's shown up in the story that took longer to report, the interview that was harder to get, the workflow that was harder to build — but just as much in the parts of life that have nothing to do with work: the harder conversation, the longer road back from a setback, the choice to keep showing up when the easier option was to walk away. The hard path is usually the one worth taking, whatever part of life you're standing in.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

President John F. Kennedy · Rice University · September 12, 1962

It's why this site carries the name We Choose — and why that speech is the thing that inspires the work and efforts represented on these pages.

Brian
Calfano

The fastest end-to-end video workflow

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